Just a dream?
by vampire princess33
Summary: Set after the Return; Midnight. One shot. The group has come back from the Dark Dimension, but Damon is not among them. He appears in Stefan's dreams.


**A/N :** I do not own Vampire Diaries. This is purely fanmade and there are more VD fanfiction to follow. This is no fluff, just brotherly next story I will be publishing will be a Delena one! Please, read & review.

Just a dream?

Stefan's POV

I knew I was dreaming because I was once again in Honoria Fell's tomb, under her gravestone in the cemetary. An instinct told me that I wasn't alone, and I braced myself up for battle when my sensitive ears caught a soft, rustling sound, by body sweeping rapidly around as if it reacted on its own will like it often happened in dreams.

There was someone hidding in the shadows, and I felt astounded as this strange entity materialized and took a hauntingly familiar shape before my wide eyes.

It was Damon, of course. Damon, as handsome and polished as always, dressed all in black and with his usual, sarcastic smile fleeting across his face and curling his lips upwards for a brief moment.

I knew he would find a way to chase after me wherever I went, yearning for this final act of revenge he had yet to deliver. What didn't make sense, however, was the fact that Damon was no longer alive and existing in this world. He shouldn't exist in _any _world, but just disappear like all the vampires who died for good.

_He is here to haunt you and teach you another of his so-called lessons_, a little voice, taunting a bitter, whispered inside me, _You of all people are the one to blame for his death and you both know it._

However, Damon just gave me a dazzling, mocking smile and said casually.

'' Hello, little brother ''

'' You are dead '', I said stupidly. It was the only thing I could think, even though Damon was standing right in front of me, obviously amused by my bewildered and reserved reaction.

'' Not here '', he answered flatly, the humourus glint in his dark eyes gone as fast as it had appeared, and I saw my brother flicking an amount of ash from his black leather jacket.

I was still looking warily at my brother, trying to determine whether this was an actual dream, just a trick of his consciousness, when Damon did something that really left me speechless.

He approached me and drew me into a tight, unexpected hug.

I did never remember Damon and me sharing a moment like this before.

'' Damon- '', I tried to say, startled, but he interrupted me.

'' I missed you, little brother. I really did. '', Damon said in a strange voice and some drops of something wet like- tears?- fell on top of my head to my own bewilderment.

That wasn't right. Damon didn't cry, but of it was a dream, what did it matter?

I bent my head against Damon's shoulder, trying to hold back my own tears.

I had missed him, too. Ever since they returned from the Dark Dimension, there hadn't been a single day when Stefan didn't think of his lost brother and didn't blame himself for his death.

''Will you leave me again?'', I asked him worriedly. Damon was the most vivid thing in this dream- warm and solitude and solitude and _alive_- but I still knew that in reality, Damon's body was burried deep beneath the derbis of a moon belonging to another dimension.

''I don't want to leave you, never again. I have done so many terrible to you and I want somehow to make up the lost time..I am so sorry Stefan...forgive me.'', his voice faded.

I was speechless. Damon actually called me with my name and not that mocking and derogatory 'little brother'.

I wanted to tell him that I didn't care about what he had done and that I had already forgiven him, that I had forgiven him long ago.

However, another thought, nagging and persistent, broke through the surface of my mind and the words that had been bothering me all this time came out of my mouth before I could control them.

''Damon? The Guardians said that you were gone. How can you be here? Or is it just a dream...?''

_Little idiot_, the little voice said once again, venomous and triumphant, _if it wasn't a dream, Damon wouldn't hug you like this and he definitely wouldn't apologise. You know how much you want it to be true._

Suddenly, Damon ended our hug and looked fiercefully into my eyes, his hands gripping tightly my arms

''I am nor dead neither alive, but stuck in a state between.''

I stared intently back into those fiery black-on-black eyes and saw all the pain, the need and the desperation that occurred to my brother.

''Oh, Damon, how can I -'', I started, but, but I was cut my his urgent, barely controlled voice.

''No,I have to warn you. You are all in grave danger. It is-''

And then Damon was fading like an image seen though a rainswept glass at first and then looking like a mirrage that was just a trick of the light. Ash was falling, covering his dissolving body, but he tried again.

''Elena! It wants E-''

The connection was cut with a last strained effort to scream the message he had been trying to convey, and then Damon completely dissapeared and Stefan woke up alone in his bedroom.


End file.
